


Men of a Certain Age

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for the inception_kink prompt: "Saito and Cobb accidentally incepted themselves when they left limbo with the idea "let's be young men together". And then there are hijinks and lols and making out. The end!" Alas, it got away from me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men of a Certain Age

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nolan’s.

It’s nearly eighteen months after the inception before Saito can’t take it anymore. Before he clears his insanely busy schedule—being the mogul of the largest energy company in the world is a twenty-four hour a day job, more often than it’s not—he finds himself jetting half-way across the world to come a-knocking on an unfamiliar door just after sunset.  
  
When that door opens, however—after several minutes, during which Saito can hear childish giggles coming from inside—it’s to reveal a familiar, yet missed face.  
  
“Mr. Saito!” Dominic Cobb says breathlessly, smiling. His hair has the mussed look of someone who’s been running his fingers through it and his clothes consist of a blue chambray shirt over a red t-shirt and grey sweatpants. “Uh, hi . . . this is a surprise. What’re you doing  _here_? Is everything okay? Shit, where’re my manners? Come in!”  
  
Saito, overwhelmed for several reasons, nods and crosses the threshold, past Cobb, catching a scent like fabric softener, fruit juice, and . . . Play-Doh. Something Saito knows about through vivid, but seemingly ancient memories of his own son’s—no, his  _projection_ ’s childhood.  
  
“Excuse the mess, but the kids had some friends over and, well, they’ve kinda turned the house upside down,” Cobb laughs, still breathlessly, as he closes the door behind Saito, then edges past him and down the long, well-lit hall, past entryways into various rooms.  
  
Having yet to say a word, Saito simply follows Cobb, inhaling that scent that speaks of summer and childhood and . . . pure  _fun_ , somehow. Just then, something collides with the backs of his legs, and he stops, looking around—and down—to see a small, blond child with chocolate around his mouth and a large, floppy, red-and-white striped hat on his head.  
  
“'Somebody stole my moss-covered, three-handled family gredunza!'” he claims in a low, ringing voice, and Saito snorts, more memories tumbling forth from his subconscious.  
  
“'And nobody's gonna leave this room until I find it!'“ he replies in his own ringing voice, arms akimbo. The boy grins up at Saito and laughs.  
  
“You do that almost as good as my daddy does. Are you a friend of his?”  
  
“Er,” Saito says, and from behind him there’s a chuckle. A gentle hand settles on the small of Saito’s back, as comfortable and familiar as if they were, in fact . . .  _friends_.  
  
“James, this is Mr. Saito. He’s a friend and an old business associate,” Cobb says, and James frowns, reaching up to take off his silly hat. It leaves mussed up hair in its wake and he looks exactly like his father.  
  
“Business? Does that mean . . . does that mean you’re going away again?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Cobb says firmly, his hand falling away from Saito’s back as he steps past him to squat, so he’s eye to eye with James. It’s something Saito can remember doing a thousand times with his own son.  
  
Rather, his projection of a son.  
  
“I told you, I’m retired, now, and that means no more long business trips.” Cobb tweaks the boy’s nose, earning himself a wavery, watery, sniffle-y smile. “I can’t promise I’ll  _never_  have to go on a trip again, but I  _can_  promise it’ll never be for that long ever again. Okay?”  
  
James nods. “Okay, daddy.” He looks up at Saito. “Don’t make my daddy have to go away again, Mr. Saito.”  
  
Saito somberly holds out his hand to the boy. “I promise I will not take your father away.” As he says this, he can feel Cobb’s eyes on him, keen and amused.  
  
James looks at Saito’s hand thoughtfully, then spits in his own tiny hand and before Saito can even be properly surprised, his hand is being taken in a small, sticky, firm grip.  
  
“Thank you for a fascinating afternoon,” James says in that low, ringing voice again. Then he’s freeing his hand and dashing down the hall, at the end of which is a staircase. He hurtles the stairs two at a time with a  _whoop_ , chanting: “It can be done, it can be done, it can be done!”  
  
When the stairs take a turn, incidentally taking James out of sight, Saito and Cobb look at each other. Cobb smiles and Saito inclines his head, wiping his hand on his slacks. Then Cobb stands up, laughing.  
  
“That,” he says wryly, “as you may have guessed, is my son James. He’s a little obsessed with _The Cat In the Hat_ , lately.”  
  
“As was my son, when he was small,” Saito says before he can stop himself. When he realizes what he said, he opens his mouth to explain . . . but can’t think of how to do it.  
  
But from the strangely empathetic look in Cobb’s eyes, he understands.  
  
 _Maybe all too well_ , Saito thinks, remembering the lady of shadows that had been Cobb's projection of his dead wife.  
  
“C’mon.” Cobb claps him on the shoulder and his hand lingers. “I’ve got some Yebisu Black in my refrigerator. You look like you could use a beer.”  
  
It’s part question, part assertion, and Saito’s inclines his head again, gratefully. “That, I could. It’s been a . . . long day.”  
  
Cobb squeezes his shoulder companionably, and they continue down the hall, past a livingroom that’s littered with toys and photos, and to the large, brightly-lit kitchen.  
  


*

  
  
“So, how’s the energy business these days?” Cobb asks, popping the top off the beer and handing it to Saito, who takes it with a murmured  _thank you_.  
  
Cobb smiles and turns back to the refrigerator to get himself one, too.  
  
“The energy business is booming, as you Americans say.”  
  
“That’s good, I guess,” Cobb says, closing the refrigerator and leaning on it. He opens his beer and takes a long sip while still regarding Saito. “But I’m also guessing that’s not why you came to see me, is it?”  
  
“No,” Saito admits, though if asked  _why_  he’d wanted—no,  _needed_  to see Dominic Cobb again . . . he couldn’t honestly give a single reason.  
  
Cobb nods, but doesn’t follow up on his question; he simply sips more beer and watches Saito thoughtfully.  
  
The silence that follows isn’t exactly uncomfortable, merely . . . patient. But it grates on Saito, like silence rarely ever has before. He finds himself wanting to not only break it, but shatter it.  
  
“Are you still in contact with the others?” he asks out of nowhere, but is suddenly very interested in the answer.  
  
(He, himself, hadn’t bothered to keep track of his former associates in the one and only mind-heist he’d hope to ever participate in.)  
  
“Well, Arthur, of course. He’s the kids’ godfather, and their honorary uncle, so I see him almost as much as I did when we worked together. He’s semi-retired, thinking about opening his own security firm—specializing, of course, in protection against mind-heists.” A shrug and smile.  
  
“And what of Mr. Eames?”  
  
“Ah, I haven’t heard from Eames, but Arthur got a postcard from him last year, with no return address and one line: ‘ _Wish you were here, darling. E._ ’” Saito’s eyebrows shoot up and Cobb grins wryly. “Yeah. Arthur claims it’s just one of Eames’s jokes, and that he has no idea where Eames is, if not Mombasa.”  
  
Saito’s  _hmm_ s. “Arthur is an excellent Pointman. I don’t doubt that if he wanted to, he could know what Eames had for breakfast this morning, in a matter of hours.”  
  
“Cheers to that.” Cobb shrugs again. “But Arthur’s ability to get what he wants, and Arthur _knowing_  what he wants are two very different beasts. But Eames is a patient man, all appearances to the contrary. I guarantee he’ll turn up when Arthur finally decides he wants looking for.”  
  
Remembering the strangely fraught interplay between the two, Saito rather imagines the same.  
  
“Uh, let’s see . . . Yusuf’s settled in Paris with Ariadne. . . .” now Cobb sounds puzzled and bemused. “She says he’s considering opening a dream den there. They’re both, by the way, still in the mind-heist biz. Arthur’s worked with them a few times. He says Ariadne’s something of a badass, these days, and that Yusuf’s driving has improved. Though not by much.”  
  
“Somehow, I am not surprised.” Saito chuckles. “About Yusuf’s driving or that they’ve both chosen to pursue lives on the greyer side of international law.” In fact, it had seemed to him that both Architect and Chemist, though as new as he had been to the mind-heist game, had gotten a taste for it that rivaled Cobb’s.  
  
“Yeah, they’re really coming into their own. Making names for themselves. Moving on with their lives . . . they all are, in their own ways.” Cobb finishes his beer with one last, long swallow.  
  
“And you?”  
  
Both of them seem surprised by Saito’s question. But Cobb shrugs, his eyes skittering to every corner of the kitchen. “Me? I’m still getting used to a life not on the lam. Getting used to my children and fatherhood . . . something for which I have you to thank—don’t think I’ve forgotten.”  
  
Saito waves a hand. “I have just as much to thank you for, Mr. Cobb—“  
  
“Dominic,” Cobb says, meeting Saito’s eyes again with a small smile. “Or ‘Dom.’”  
  
“Then you must call me Ryuichiro. Or . . . ‘Ryu,’ if that is easier.”  
  
That small smile widens. “Ryu, then, in the interests of not completely butchering your name. So . . . Ryu . . . have you moved on with  _your_  life?”  
  
It’s not asked spitefully, or even sardonically. Though it is asked gently, compassionately, as if Cobb— _Dom_  already knows the answer. And perhaps he does.  
  
“Not . . . in so many words. Not in the ways that truly matter,” Saito says finally, slowly. Then, in a gut-level decision that’s been the hallmark of his life, he decides to be as forthright as possible. Which isn’t very, but he feels that it’s imperative that he try. That he and Dominic Cobb understand each other as well as two men such as they ever can. “I feel as if there’s something . . . missing. As if my life is empty, when—“  
  
“—it should be full,” Dom finishes lowly, nodding. “As if all those months ago, you filled one hole in your life, and simultaneously dug yourself another.”  
  
Saito's shoulders suddenly sag with relief. “Yes. Exactly.”  
  
“Limbo,” Dom says quietly, nodding.  
  
They spend the next minute measuring each other, Saito’s beer forgotten, Dom’s empty bottle clutched like a lifeline.  
  
Finally, Saito sighs. “Do you remember what you said? When you found me, old and withered and filled with regrets?”  
  
Still clutching at the bottle, Dom looks away then almost immediately looks back. His eyes are a blue so intense, Saito finds it hard to keep meeting them. But he does.  
  
“I promised you that . . . that we would be young men together.” Dom laughs a little, self-mockingly. “You know, I think about that promise, every day, and about how fucking  _ancient_  I feel, even in the middle of playing Chutes and Ladders with my kids. I feel so damn  _old_  . . . all the time. And I regret so much. . . .”  
  
Saito places his beer down on the counter behind him, and approaches Dom slowly, as one approaches a wounded animal. “So do I. Even in my sleep, I regret. And I hear the words you said, in dreams of things and people that never were and never will be,” he murmurs, thinking of the wife and son he never had, not  _really_ , but that he lost, nonetheless. Of years spent in perfect contentment . . . a contentment he knows he’ll never find again, outside of Limbo.  
  
“I never dream, anymore, and honestly . . . I’m  _glad_  . . . ah, fuck,” Dom swears softly, a tear running down his face. He goes to wipe it away and nearly hits himself in the face with the bottle. " _Fuck_!"  
  
Saito tuts, and takes the bottle, placing it in the sink to Dom’s left. Then he takes Dom’s face in his hands—his palms prickle at the beginnings of stubble—brushing the renegade tear away with his thumb. More follow its example, and Saito catches them, too.  
  
“I understand, now, why I came here, Dom,” he says in a rush, bringing their foreheads together till Dom’s face is a warm, pale blur. “I need to be a young man again, and . . . I think I can only be that man when I am with you.”  
  
“Tell me, Ryu . . . am I making you feel young, right now?” Dom asks bitterly. “I can’t even make _myself_  feel young . . . I really thought I’d be able to deliver on that promise I made you, but now. . . .”  
  
Dom takes a deep breath and exhales. On the back of that exhalation is a shaky laugh. “You know, I was going crazy trying not to show up on your doorstep. I thought I was being selfless, but now . . . I’m pretty sure I was just being a coward because I  _knew_. I knew that I had nothing to offer and no way to keep my promise.” That shaky laugh again and Dom starts to pull away. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Saito captures Dom’s face again and pulls him close. He feels as if, now that he's come this physically close to the man who's taken up his errant thoughts for the past year and a half, to have to give up that closeness would destroy him. “I will accept your apology only if you accept mine . . . I am sorry that I waited so long to come to you. I, too, told myself I was being selfless. What I really was, was afraid that . . . you’d forgotten your promise. Or that you’d turn me away.”  
  
“Never,” Dom says with steely gravity. “You saved my life, once. And I meant to save yours, I did, I just . . . I don’t know how. I’m just as lost as you are.”  
  
“Then perhaps what is needed is to find our way out together, just as we once did,” Saito suggests simply, though his entire world hinges on this realization and Dom's response to it.  
  
“And how do you propose we do that, Ryu? We’re not dreaming, now. There’s no helpful kick to wake us up.” Dom sighs, shaking his head hopelessly. “I'm sorry. This is one Limbo we may never get out—“  
  
The rest of this pessimistic statement gets smothered by Saito’s lips pressing against Dom’s.  
  
For a second, he gets no response.  
  
For a second, it’s as if every chance at happiness, or even at contentment has turned to ash, and his world has stopped spinning.  
  
Then Dom’s hands come up to settle on his shoulders . . . then Dom's arms are wrapping around Saito’s neck in a tight clinch . . . then Dom's lips part with the most yearning, wanton moan. . . .  
  
Saito’s own hands find their way to Dom’s hips and his tongue strokes almost lazily into Dom’s mouth. He pushes Dom against his refrigerator, hearing the  _plink_  of magnets hitting the floor, followed by the flutter of several take-out menus and drawings.  
  
Dom tastes like good Japanese beer and chocolate. He tastes like the salt of unshed tears. He tastes like everything Saito’s been missing and didn’t know he needed until he finally,  _finally_  got it.  
  
A loud giggle from upstairs and the patter of feet approaching the stairs makes them start and step apart almost guiltily. They look down the empty hall then look at each other when the footsteps patter away from the stairs, post-kiss shock writ large on their faces.  
  
“Should I perhaps be apologizing?” Saito asks gruffly. Dom’s eyebrows draw together.  
  
“Maybe for stopping,” he says, laughing anxiously and running a hand through his hair. Then he steps forward, into Saito’s personal space again, placing hesitant hands on Saito’s chest. This close, his eyes are mesmerizing, his gaze naked. “Look, I don’t know what any of this means, or why me, or why  _you_. I just know that for the first time since way before the inception, I feel . . . _right_  in my own skin.”  
  
Saito nods, as lost in those eyes as he’d been in Limbo. “Yes. As if some awful tension has finally melted away.” His hands come up to cup Dom’s face again, only to see those blue eyes shuttered by pale lids.  
  
He looks like a man who expects to be kissed, so Saito does. And kisses him and kisses him. Until Dom is trembling in his arms.  
  
“Are you alright?” he breathes on Dom’s lips, only to get a choked off laugh as a response.  
  
“I haven’t been this alright in years,” he says, pulling Saito more fully against him. In his loose sweatpants, it’s impossible to disguise the fact that he’s getting hard.   
  
They look into each other’s eyes for a long moment. A moment which Saito breaks by stepping back just far enough to take the cloth-covered erection in hand and squeeze.  
  
“Are we really gonna do this right here? Right  _now_?” Dom asks half-scandalized, half amused, as his eyes flutter shut once more. He bites his lip and moans softly, thrusting against Saito’s palm. “My kids could come downstairs at any second.”  
  
Saito  _hmm_ s and squeezes, squeezes and  _hmm_ s. “Children are often unpredictable in that way,” he agrees, removing his hand reluctantly, with a sigh. Dom chuckles, leaning in to kiss away a frown Saito hadn’t even realized he was wearing.  
  
“Later,” he says softly, looking into Saito’s eyes, his own like lasers. “Or did you have something better to do between dinner and breakfast?”  
  
“I can assure you I do not.” Saito reminds himself to push back all his meetings for the next day. After that . . . he supposes that after that, they’ll see. “I am, you might say, at loose ends.”  
  
Dom grins, a happy, rakish thing that makes Saito’s heart beat faster.  
  
“Good. That’s . . . really good,” he breathes. Then they’re kissing again, slow and sweet. The kind of kiss it’s impossible not to lose oneself in. And so lost are they that they don’t even notice the slap of bare feet coming down the stairs and hallway, followed quickly by the  _click-click_  of what sounds like tap shoes.  
  
“Dad- _deeee_ , James keeps saying he’s going to boil me in beezlenut oil!”  
  
“That’s because you called me a dipshit!” James exclaims, and Dom breaks the kiss, wide-eyed and aghast, to look down at his children. They’re seemingly so caught up in their own drama—James, wearing his Cat-in-the hat once more and a tallish, young girl with light brown hair, lovely blue-grey eyes that Saito remembers from a dream, and tap shoes—that they don’t realize what they’ve walked in on. Indeed, they’re so busy glaring at each other that neither of them notices Saito.  
  
“James Landon Cobb! We do  _not_  swear in this house!” Dom says, but his lips are twitching as if he wants to laugh. “And Phillippa Jane! Where did you hear language like that?”  
  
Phillippa mumbles something, looking down at her tap shoes.  
  
“What was that?” Dom demands, schooling his face into sternness that Saito can see right through, but the children clearly cannot. They wince and look at each other. But it’s James who speaks up.  
  
“Cindy said it! She thought we were asleep and she was talking on the phone, and she said someone named Joey Ross was a complete and total dipshi—um, that word I’m not s’posed to say,” he blurts out on one impressive breath, only to get elbowed by a grim Phillippa.  
  
“Tattler,” she mutters, and James looks stung.  
  
“Cindy Kaplan is our babysitter,” Dom whispers in an aside to Saito. “Our babysitter with whom I’ll be having a talk about her language. She sometimes forgets that little pitchers have big ears.”  
  
“Ah,” Saito says sagely.  
  
“Daddy, are we gonna have to get a new babysitter?” Phillippa asks tentatively. “I mean, I really like Cindy.”  
  
“Me, too!” James pipes up hastily. “I like her even more than Pip does! I don’t  _want_  a new babysitter!”  
  
Dom rolls his eyes. “You’re not going to get a new babysitter. Relax. But I don’t want you using language like that, in this house or out of it. Capiche?”  
  
“Capiche,” both children say at once, sounding chastened and relieved. Dom nods, his hand coming to rest at the small Saito’s back once more.  
  
“Now, James, you’ve already met Mr. Saito. Phillippa—“ Dom smiles at Saito. “This is daddy’s special friend, Mr. Saito. Ryu, this is my daughter, Phillippa.”  
  
Phillippa tilts her head curiously, and she looks less like her mother and more like Dom. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Saito.”  
  
“And I you, Phillippa.” When she holds out her hand, Saito takes it without hesitation. It’s cool and feels relatively clean.  
  
“He likes  _Cat in the Hat_!” James interjects, then leans in to grab Saito’s other hand and whisper: “Pip doesn’t like  _Cat in the Hat_  at all.”  
  
Phillippa rolls her eyes.  
  
“Hey, you wanna come to my room and see my Dr. Seuss collection? Daddy got me it for Christmas. And I’ve got lots of toys, too!” James bounces happily, already starting to tug Saito toward the stairs. Saito throws an almost helpless glance back at Dom, who’s clearly struggling not to laugh.  
  
“You, ah, can show him after dinner, sweetheart,” Dom promises, a question in his eyes when he looks at Saito. Saito nods slightly.  
  
“Okay. And after these hellions are in bed, I can show you  _my_  room,” Dom whispers with slathered on innocence, his blue eyes wide and suspiciously guileless. “ _I’ve_  got lots of toys, too.”  
  
“But daddy, all you’ve got in your room are books,” Phillippa says, with  _real_  innocence and guilelessness. James nods his fervent agreement.  
  
Dom sighs. “Little pitchers, big ears. C’mon, guys, go get washed up and I’ll order out for dinner.”  
  
“Yes!” James exclaims, jumping up and down. “Can we get pizza? With pineapples and ham?”  
  
“We had that three days ago,” Phillippa says forbiddingly, elbowing James again. “We should get Pad Thai.”  
  
“How come all the menus and drawings are on the  _floor_ , daddy?” James asks, letting go of Saito’s hand and going over to the refrigerator. He selects the menu he wants from the pile and leaves the rest on the floor.  
  
“Um. I accidentally knocked them off the fridge.” Dom glances at Saito, who contrives to look inscrutable.  
  
“How?”  
  
Dom looks at Phillippa, opens his mouth . . . then closes it with an audible snap. Suddenly he’s shooing both children out of the kitchen. “Never mind how, just go get washed up. We’re having Indian.”  
  
“Aww,” Pippa says, clearly disappointed. “I wanted Thai.”  
  
“And I wanted pizza . . . ooh! Can we get extra gulab jamuns?” James enthuses. Dom thinks it over as he leads the children to the hallway, one hand on each of their backs.  
  
“Yes,” he says finally. “But we’re not gonna leave them in the fridge till they get moldy, this time. This time, you’re going to finish them.”  
  
“I promise I will, daddy! Yay! Gulab jamuns! All for me!” James dances out of the kitchen, followed by Phillippa, who crosses her arms over her chest.  
  
“Not  _all_  for you. You’re so selfish!”  
  
“Beezlenut! Rah-rah!” James crows, then runs. Phillippa chases him up the stairs.  
  
“I’ll boil  _you_  in beezlenut oil!”  
  
“No, you won’t!”  
  
“Yes, I will!”  
  
“Won’t!”  
  
“Will! Will-will-will!”  
  
All the way up the stairs and presumably to the bathroom.  
  
When they’re almost out of earshot, Dom sags and sighs exaggeratedly, and Saito chuckles, pulling the embattled father into his arms.  
  
“See what kinda circus you're hitching your wagon to?” Dom asks, smiling limply. “Two crazy, semi-spoiled children, one with no sense of humor, the other with no sense of boundaries, and a fairly confused father flying by the seat of his pants more often than he’s not, and who’s always at least two steps behind.”  
  
Saito leans their foreheads together again, swaying them to a waltz only he can hear. It just so happens to be  _Non Je Ne Regrette Rien_.  
  
“It sounds like you could use a little more structure and discipline in your life,” he notes. Dom snorts and lets himself be guided across the floor, winding his arms around Saito’s neck again.  
  
“Probably. But I’ll wager you could use a little  _less_  structure and discipline in yours—whoa!” Dom gasps as Saito slowly, carefully dips him. His eyes are wide and sparkling and direct. Saito holds the pose and that gaze, searching it before easing them both upright again.  
  
Dom smiles, slow and knowing.  
  
“And I’ll further wager you top like a  _boss_ ,” he breathes, and Saito’s eyebrow quirks in question. Dom laughs, kissing away the puzzled expression. “In bed . . . do you, um, like to penetrate your partner or to be penetrated.”  
  
“Ah.” Saito colors and clears his throat. “I . . . would say the former, if only because I have never tried the latter.”  
  
“Really?” Dom seems genuinely surprised. “Not even by yourself, with a dildo? Or your fingers?” Off Saito’s brief head shake, he whistles. “Boy-howdy, have  _you_  been missing out, lemme tell ya.”  
  
“I would . . . I believe I would prefer it if you  _showed_  me.”  
  
Dom blinks, then grins again, a trifle wolfishly, now. “And I’ll even make you waffles for breakfast,” he cheerfully informs Saito, and begins swaying them again. This time, Dom takes control of their dance, and Saito . . . lets him. It’s surprisingly, wonderfully freeing.  
  
And that’s how the children—only slightly cleaner than they had been, in James’s case—find them ten minutes later, shuffling about in fallen menus and drawings, and staring into each other’s eyes and smiling.  
  
“Laaaaaame!” James says. Then: “Does this mean we have two daddies, now, Pip?”  
  
“Probably,” Phillippa says matter-of-factly. Then she brightens. “Maybe Mr. Saito can cook dinner better than daddy, so we don’t have to eat take-out so much.”  
  
“I like take-out! Especially pizza!”  
  
“You’d eat dog poop if it was covered in cheese.”  
  
“Are you hearing this, Ryu? Because I’m not hearing this.” Dom says placidly, gazing up at the ceiling as if he's found the secret of life, the universe, and everything up there. “All I hear is my quiet, well-behaved children going up to their rooms till dinner gets here.”  
  
Saito looks thoughtfully up at the ceiling as well. “I seem to hear the same thing.”  
  
“Yeah, because if I heard anything  _but_  that, it might result in a trip to  _Vegan Delights_  for dinner. . . .”  
  
Tap shoes and bare feet patter quickly back down the hall and up the stairs.  
  
In the ensuing silence, Saito and Dom look away from the fascinating ceiling and into each other’s eyes.  
  
“Effective bluffing is an important strategy in business and parenting,” Saito says admiringly. Dom buries his laugh in Saito’s shoulder.   
  
“I’ve never done anything like that, before,” he admits sheepishly, all but giggling. “I can’t believe it  _worked_. As I recall, my bluffing didn’t work on  _you_.”  
  
Saito finds himself chuckling, and kissing Dom’s hair. It smells faintly of coconut. “Ah, but you did not threaten me with  _Vegan Delights_ , did you?”  
  
Dom bursts out laughing again.  
  
“It’s really not that funny,” Saito says mildly, sliding his hands down to Dom’s waist, swaying them once more. Dom relinquishes the lead with the same ease he’d taken it, putting his arms around Saito’s neck. His eyes are merry and his face more boyish and carefree than Saito’s ever seen it.  
  
"Kiss me," he says huskily, playing with the hair at Saito's nape.  
  
Saito allows himself a small smile before obeying.


End file.
